'The Foreigner' comes home to Milwaukee

On Love and Language Barriers

Thirty-one
years ago, Larry Shue’s comedy The
Foreigner premiered in Milwaukee before achieving national acclaim off
Broadway and regionally. Its most recent Brew City reprise takes place on
Theatre Unchained’s intimate stage. John Baiocchi directs and Artistic Director
James Dragolovich stars as Charlie, the traveling English cuckold with the
amusingly mistaken notion that pretending not to speak English will make for an
uneventful stay in a Georgia fishing lodge.

The
production feels under-rehearsed in terms of line recall and dialects, but is
nonetheless a lot of laughs in a heartwarming package. The forays into
slapstick are especially successful. Dragolovich’s facial expressions are
hilarious when Charlie hides on a small couch, inadvertently overhearing a
serious discussion between the engaged couple, David (Jon Weisse) and Catherine
(Liz Leighton). The scenes in which Ellard (A.J. Stibbe) “teaches” English
words to Charlie in a thick Southern drawl are similarly gut busting.

Shue’s
message that sometimes it takes a fictitious persona to bring out the best in
everybody comes across clearly as well. Stibbe’s charmingly obtuse Ellard
finally gets to be seen as something more than a dense country bumpkin through
his lessons with Charlie, and Leighton’s brilliantly high-strung Catherine gets
the confidant she’s always wanted by confessing her secrets to the enamored,
supposedly uncomprehending foreigner. Moreover, the bad guys trying to take
over the lodge for sinister purposes get a serious run for their money from the
strange man whose meaningless “voodoo talk” packs more of a punch than they
bargain for.

The
Foreigner runs through March 2 at Theatre
Unchained, 1024 S. Fifth St.